Our Goilet (Ghost Toilet)

I got home from work yesterday, and it sounded like someone was in the shower, but then my husband walked out of the kitchen. "Something's wrong with the toilet, I called C. (apt. handy man)" he told me.

Now, our building is old. Reaaaally old. For example, we only pay electricty and gas, since the heat and water in the building are configured in a way that can't be allocated to each apartment. The toilets are also old. They look and sound like the kind you'd find in a public restroom, with a silver handle you push down, and no tank. The sound is deafning.

So we go into the bathroom and he shows me how the water in the toilet is 'running'. The same type of thing on a normal toilet can be fixed by jiggling the handle or opening the tank and figuring out what's not closed. (I once fixed a toilet using nothing but a pony holder). But with out toilet there wasn't much to work with. We tried the sink, and the water pressure was very low. So we waited for C.

C. showed up and took a look at everything. He came to the same conclusion as us. There wasn't anything that could be fixed from our bathroom, but he did get a call that the apartment above us had a problem as well. He went to check it out and it was the same situation. He said he would try to call a plumber, but it was pretty late in the day.

He wasn't able to get anyone to come out, because no one was trained or experienced in such "antique toilets", "but someone should be there by 8am tomorrow morning" he told us. He then came back to the building because the lady downstairs had a different problem, her toilet was contantly flushing water, which explained the lack of water in the other 2 apartments. (Whenever someone turns on water, or flushes a toilet in the building, it lowers the pressure in the sinks and showers) So he went down to the scary boiler room next to the scary laundry room to turn off the water, because the lady downstairs' toilet's noise was driving her crazy. In our apartment, it stopped the running but that meant that it turned off our water too. So C. turned it back on.

Suddenly the toilet started flushing itself at random moments. My husband walked into the room and we heard a flush from the bathroom. We were practically on the floor laughing. Somehow over the course of the night things calmed down, and the water pressure in the snks returned with a flush here or there...

When i got home from work the noise was much louder than when i arrived home the day before. Our toilet was constantly flushing out the water that was pouring in. It sounded like Niagra falls. For hours it was constantly flushing, and C. said he'd come by....

He stopped by as I was resting from my toilet induced headache and turned the water off and on. The flushing stopped, but then the toilet did a ghost flush, but it's been quiet for the past few minutes. No one knows how to fix it, it's not normal!!!!

Behold, the "Goilet" (Ghost Toilet)